Do you know if your neighbor is a sex offender?

WOOD COUNTY (13abc Action News) – Do you know who your neighbors are? That’s the question Wood County deputies and Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn want you to ask yourself.
Jeremy Sheeks patrols Wood County and monitors the Electronic Sex Offender Registration and Notification (eSORN) Database. Sheeks has been checking on area sex offenders for years at the Wood County Sheriff’s Office.
“The registry was created to keep tabs on these people,” said Sheeks.
His job is to make sure sex offenders are where they’re supposed to be.
Sheeks said he verifies, “with their places of employment, if they’re still employed or not employed. We’ll get the dates to locate where they’re at [and] if they’re working.”
About 120 people are registered sex offenders in Wood County. Some have committed crimes that hold lesser charges. While others require a check-up every 90 days for more serious charges.
Sheriff Wasylyshyn said, “there are some good people who have made some bad decisions that are on our list and that are very unlikely to re-offend. Unfortunately there are some tier three offenders that are the most violent. We currently have 22 of those in Wood County.”
Sheriff Wasylyshyn utilizes a tool called Watch Systems that monitors sex offenders nationwide.
Each county is ranked depending on the number of households and how well the department notifies users
“The minute that we register someone, that is in the radius, that is in what the person puts in, they almost instantly get an email from this office,” said Sheriff Wasylyshyn.
Safety is the main reason Sheeks patrols and the sheriff actively signs area residents up to watch systems.
Sheeks said, “there’s a since of pride that I’m doing my part to help out communities safe,”
“We know that child predators get caught re-offending 65% of the time. Get caught offending 65% of the time. That’s scary to me,” added the sheriff.
So when it comes to alerting citizens about registered sex offenders, how does your county compare? Watch Systems ranked Wood County number four on a national scale.Lucas County comes in at number 28 on the list. Fulton County falls in at number 34 and the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office drops in at 76.
It’s important to remember that this is a national list, so it includes counties from around the country.See the full story on 13abc.